In addition, 74% of tablet owners would love to be able to pick and choose commercials they are shown.

As for generational video viewing habits, Millennials (born 1977-1994) tablet owners spent 23% of their total video-watching time — which is the time spent watching video on any device in a 7-day period — watching video on a tablet. This compares to 16% for GenXers (1965-1976), 11% for Baby Boomers (1946-1964) and 6% for pre-Boomers…

Amazon’s vast customer base with demographic information gives it an edge over other players while offering a greater targeting options for advertisers.

“Amazon spent a lot of time developing algorithms to make recommendations to consumers shopping on Amazon.com,” an executive who oversees an ad exchange that is a partner of Amazon’s told the Reuters news agency. Yaakov Kimelfeld, chief research officer at Kantar Media Compete, said that he doesn’t see Amazon as a retailer anymore — rather it is the “largest behavioral marketing company in the world.”

Using its own demographic data, the company is able to bid on adverts in global publisher exchanges and more accurately target the delivery on behalf of its own advertisers. Yeah, we think Amazon is in the prime position to emerge as one of the leaders in this market… and we’ll get back to you as soon as we have something new to add to the story. Stay tuned…

These new ads are designed to be noticeable, but not entirely obtrusive. They look just like any other post in the Dashboard, but you’ll know when you’re looking at an advertisement because they’re marked by a dollar sign ($) at the top right. The image above is an ad from GE which simply incorporates a few words and an animated GIF.

“The content our brand partners have created is more than just advertising — it is thoughtful, beautiful, and diverse content that fits seamlessly alongside the best work on our network,” said David Karp, Tumblr founder and CEO. Tumblr is starting out with ads open to just its initial partners: ABC Entertainment, ABC Family, GE, Pepsi, and Warner Bros.

If you don’t see ads right away, you will soon. The rollout is scheduled for completion by the end of May, so some time roughly within the next month they’ll start popping up in your mobile Dashboard. Users can see up to four per day. That’s in addition to the Radar ads in the sidebar of the desktop website, though these are far less noticeable.

“This is the first of many exciting planned Tumblr ad launches in 2013,” said Lee Brown, Global Head of Sales and formerly of Groupon. Tumblr is aiming to reach profitability by the end of this year.

[via The Verge]

The first thing developers will notice is a completely updated interface that gives them greater flexibility and control, while reducing the code required for implementation. Moreover, the READ_PHONE_STATE permission for Android is now removed.

The suite of Video Advertising Solutions for smartphones and tablets is expanded giving developers access to even more high CPM brand campaigns. Also new is that Millennial Media is now IAB MRAID 2.0 certified so that developers can benefit from additional revenue potential as advertisers seek an MRAID 2.0 compliant solution for their rich media campaigns.

iOS app makers can now integrate with Facebook, Twitter and the App Store to enable improved user engagement. For instance, users will be able to complete such actions as “Like,” “Share,” “Tweet” and “Download App,” and then be immediately returned to the application. In addition, there’s the ability to make money from brand advertising campaigns that use Passbook to deliver boarding passes, loyalty cards, retail coupons, movie tickets and more directly to a consumer’s mobile device.

If you’re a developer making from in-app ads, you’ll want to get Millennial Media’s SDK 5.0, which can be downloaded from here; technical documentation and release notes can be viewed here.

The appeal of mobile location-based ads is obvious – companies get to precisely target prospective customers using real-time location, making it a viable channel for both major corporations (which are still the biggest ad spenders) and small businesses.

The “problem” (if it’s a problem at all) is that the LBA value chain is still forming and there are a large number of players involved in the fragmented ecosystem. Companies range from LBA specialists such as Verve, Placecast and xAd, to LBS players like Telmap, Telenav and Waze, and operators such as AT&T, SFR and the new UK joint venture Weve. Furthermore, there’s an abundance of location-aware applications and media which serve geo-targeted ads, including Foursquare, Shopkick and SCVNGR.

But that’s not all – we also have coupons and deals providers like Vouchercloud, Yowza!! and COUPIES; search solutions such as Yell and Yelp; and proximity marketing providers like Proxama, NeoMedia and Scanbuy. Finally, let’s not forget a number of traditional mobile advertising players which are also active in the LBA space, for example Millennial Media, Madvertise and Nexage; as well as major digital and telecom players like Google, Apple and Facebook…

Mobile devices are steadily becoming a shopping tool, and are now used throughout the research and decision-making process of a purchase. In fact, 75% of respondents admitted they’d been introduced to something new via their mobile device, 67% feel that it had provided them with better options, 46% said they had made purchases using their mobile device, and 45% said it has influenced their in-store purchases.

This leads to conclusion that brands have remarkable opportunities to engage with consumers on a more personal level using mobile apps. The findings suggest that the average consumer actively uses 6.5 apps throughout a 30 day period.

Some other findings from the report include:

• 54% of respondents reported that they had noticed ads while engaged in an app.
• 80% were influenced by a mobile ad to download an app and 67% went on to visit a brand’s website immediately afterwards.
• 59% of mobile users are now as comfortable with mobile advertising as they are with TV or online advertising.
• Globally, 54% of users discover mobile ads via apps, 40% on a search engine, 27% on a retailer website and 23% on a video website.
• 66% have spent money on an activity via a mobile device, and 80% of consumers plan to conduct mobile commerce in the next 12 months, a 21% increase from where we are today.

And you can get the full report from InMobi’s website.

Opera’s mobile browsers are used by more than 237 million people around the world, and Opera Mediaworks is created to expand Opera’s brand and presence, while at the same time enabling a more open and efficient marketplace among mobile publishers and advertisers.

One of the first initiatives of the newly formed entity is a performance-based mobile advertising platform called Opera Mediaworks Performance that provides advertisers with tools — including real-time targeting and reporting — to better reach their target audience and acquire new customers.

In addition, Opera Mediaworks offers four service areas targeting advertisers, publishers, mobile operators and others that participate in the mobile economy:

• Ad mediation and Ad exchange services – through AdMarvel and Opera Mediaworks Ad Exchange.
• Mobile ad agency and networks – through Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising, two of the leading premium mobile advertising networks in North America and Europe.
• Opera Mobile Store – which is the largest multi-platform app store, accessible from any web-enabled phone.
• Opera Payment Exchange (OPX) – that allows operators and storefronts to gain merchandising intelligence and lower costs and to monetize their offerings.

Additional details, in case you need them, are available from here.

• Mobile traffic is expected to exceed desktop traffic as early as this year.
• In Q4 2012, mobile traffic accounted for 40% of all digital traffic of leading Sports Channels, and 32% of News Channels.
• Publishers running a mobile apps and/or mobile sites have seen their mobile traffic multiplying during the last year: 2.6 times in UK, 2.9 times in Germany, 4.3 times in USA, 2.7 times in France, 4.2 times in Brazil…
• Mobile web traffic makes up most of mobile traffic in Germany (86%), USA (76%), Brazil (77%) contrarily to UK (53%), France (74%), Italy (66%) where mobile apps dominate mobile traffic.
• Users are more likely to use their mobile & tablet than their computer earlier in the morning (before 9AM) and later in the evening (after 8PM for mobile / 10PM for tablet).
• Of more than 4,000 Internet-enabled mobile devices, only a few are really used to access online mobile sites and generate ad impression. Samsung Galaxy and iPhone ranges account for 60% of ad impression realized in mobile web.
• Android smartphones and tablets exceeded iOS last year in term of mobile ad impressions. These devices have gained 17 points in 2012 (vs 2011), while iOS has lost 5 points in 2012.

And here’s the infographic neatly summing it all up…

The pair say they will “explore efficient ways of providing global advertisers and agencies with new and easier options to plan multi country mobile campaigns.”

Initially, they will target the US (via Sprint), and European and Latin American markets (Telefonica) with plans to grow “further in scale, particularly to include Asia.”

According to Vice president of Sprint’s New Ventures division Mike Cooley, through this alliance, the two giants are seeking to efficiently expand capabilities to deliver mobile marketing solutions for US-based advertisers into Europe and Latin America, while Telefonica Digital aims to do the same for their regional customers in the United States.

Sounds like a plan…

[Via: MobileWorldLive]